Everything in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan is “Over the top.” Including our hotel. It was called The Sport Hotel and was part of the mega, multi-million dollar sports complex built in 2011 to host the Central Asian Winter Games. In keeping with the image of Ashgabat being the “White Pearl of Central Asia,” the hotel was massive and completely encased in Italian white marble, spangled inside and out with gold trim, and as we'd discover throughout our visit, another building almost devoid of people.
The Lobby of The Sport Hotel - the major repository for tourists visiting Ashgabat.
Natalia, our amiable government-approved minder and guide for the week, walked us through registration. We would give up our passports for the next 24 hours, and in keeping with our visa agreement, we would not leave the hotel without an escort. After we arrived in Ashgabat at 3:00 a.m. and our immigration adventures, we were so fatigued we would have said yes to anything.
Our room was similar to this one.
We finally headed to our room at 6:00 a.m. for three hours of sleep before breakfast. We’ve grazed on many hotel breakfast spreads worldwide, which has been one of the more interesting experiences we’ve had during our travels. What is served up for breakfast offers a window into the culture of the country you are in. And, of course, there is always a nod to our mostly unhealthy Western idea of breakfast - cornflakes, cocoa puffs, sweet rolls, and the occasional waffle. In this case, there wasn't much of anything. Soupy oatmeal, pre-fried eggs, cheese, sliced mystery meats, a dry cornflake-like cereal yogurt, and fruit. Good strong coffee, though! We met another American traveler who'd visited 170 countries, including Iran - a country Michael is very interested in exploring.
Afterward, we met Natalia and our driver in the lobby for Day One of our week in Turkmenistan. There's no rest for the Western Wicked, that’s for sure. The day began with a tour of some of the capital's most important plazas and parks.
You’ll have to give a few more details than “I live in a huge white apartment building” if you are a resident.
However, just by driving from place to place, you could appreciate the “glory” given to autocrats past and present, by the size and the amount of gold on the monuments placed at every intersection - as well as the dazzling marble-clad monoliths housing government offices and posh residential towers. As so many posts from travelers who visit this strange country have noted - it’s a barren metropolis. It may be beautiful, but it lacks humanity.
It’s all monuments in the capital city all the time.
This memorial sculpture commemorates the 1948 Earthquake and the survival of Turkmenistan’s first President, Saparmurat Niyazov, as an infant. The other monument could be celebrating Churros. I am not sure.
Our lunch break took place in a traditional Yurt. It was one of several on a site specifically for tourists to enjoy traditional Turkmenistan cuisine, similar to other central Asian countries. It is very meat-centric with few frills. Most dishes are based on lamb, goat, or mutton grilled, stewed, skewered, or stuffed into dumplings.
A traditional dish is Palaw - similar to Plov, a riced-based dish simmered with meat, carrots, and assorted root vegetables and garnished with raisins or dates. A salad of sliced tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, and a variety of flatbreads accompanies most meals. Michael and I tried several dishes, but our bodies hadn’t adjusted yet, and the food was heavy. Our driver couldn’t imagine not cleaning our plates - who knows where your next meal might come from? He took care of that for us. During our lunch stop, I discovered we were back in the land of squat toilets. Ugh. There will be more (but not much) on that later.
By six in the evening, we turned our attention to finding a bottle of wine to enjoy with room service in our hotel room. With almost no access to the internet and just a handful of state-run television stations to watch, it was a good thing our Kindles were loaded, and we had our travel Scrabble game in hand to while away the evening.
We weren’t sure we could procure alcohol of any kind in Turkmenistan, but our intrepid guide knew where such quasi-contraband could be found. There is not a lot of choice in the wine department. Red? White? Both—preferably not sweet. End of conversation.
Wine turned out to be easier to procure than we thought - and it wasn’t bad.
Back at our hotel, as opulent as it was, we found few amenities in the room, including drinking glasses. A call to the front desk didn’t get me very far, so I went “stealth mode” and poked my head into the restaurant (empty of course), and a private dining area looking for glasses. I spied some preset tables in a small, empty meeting room and absconded with two good-sized goblets. I was pleased with my loot - but later realized there were probably cameras everywhere in this hotel, and at any moment, I could be arrested and flung into the darkest of prisons. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. I continued my criminal behavior by tucking the glasses in my suitcase for further emergencies!
On Day Two, we traveled over 500 miles round-trip, resulting in a 16-hour day trip. I am not exaggerating. We left our hotel at 9:00 a.m. to visit the ruins of a mosque destroyed in the major earthquake of 1948 and the ancient city of Merv (also called Mary), one of the “highlights” of any visit to Turkmenistan. We stumbled into our hotel at 1:00 a.m. the following morning.
Once we left the immaculate metropolis of Ashgabat, with its modern motorways and streets as smooth as glass, we were surprised at how quickly things deteriorated. The roads became rougher the further we traveled, and the buildings became shoddier. And soon the poverty that is whispered about became evident.
I didn’t choose to take any photos of any of our traffic stops - but they looked a lot like this.
As we traveled to Merv, our young driver was pulled over by traffic police at least five times. They are intimidating! They plant themselves on the roadside armed with black and white batons and can seemingly flag you down for whatever infraction strikes their fancy. Poor kid. Each time, he had to step out of the car, show his papers, and wait to find out what the “penalty” would be. And, of course, that needed to be paid in cash on the spot. Natalia had an envelope filled with Manats to pay the fines since this type of "shakedown" seemed an everyday practice.
Michael and I outside a mosque undergoing some renovations in Merv. The interior is worth saving!
When we finally reached the ancient city of Merv, also called Mary, I am afraid we were underwhelmed. This goes back to Turkmenistan's lack of concern for tourism or preserving its treasures. We saw crumbling mosques and dusty and desolate ruins that would have been carefully restored in Uzbekistan. Merv had a fascinating history, though—and a massive battle against Ghengis Khan was fought there. We drove around the site and took away what we could before returning to Ashgabat. After returning to the States, I researched, and it is an impressive historical site.
Various ruins from Merv, which is the most important ancient site in Turkmenistan
Day Three started out cold and rainy. We would have happily stayed in our hotel for a bit of recuperation, but it was a travel day. We would leave Ashgabat for a lengthy drive into the desert to see the Darvaza Gas Crater, also known as “The Gates of Hell.” This is the one attraction in Turkmenistan that almost all tourists visit. Our itinerary included an overnight in a Yurt near the crater and a dinner with other travelers.
One of the beautiful Akhal-Teke horses at the national stables.
But before we left, we visited the Arhai-Teke Horse Stables and Arena. The Akhal-Teke is a Turkmen horse breed. They have a reputation for speed, endurance, intelligence, and a distinctive metallic sheen. The animals were beautiful, and we watched dressage training in the covered arena.
We loaded up on provisions at the large bazaar and hit the road. On this day, we had a new driver. He was older and drove much faster than our previous driver. No traffic officers stopped us, but this was a grueling travel day.
The roads were awful almost the entire way. There were potholes the size of kitchen tables, often filled with standing water, packs of camels (drinking the standing water), and a monotonous desert landscape with few amenities.
Michael has just about had it with our bone-rattling drive to the Davarna Gas Crater - the potholes were almost unavoidable.
As we wove around the potholes and swerved to miss animals and oncoming cars (swerving the other direction), it felt like we were on a plane experiencing nonstop turbulence! And when we did stop, the toilets were almost always squat, and the stench was unbearable. This was another head-scratcher after the cleanliness and modern amenities of the capital city. I couldn’t use most of the bathrooms we encountered, so I cut a water bottle in half, which became my “standing” toilet that I would use behind a building or a bush. I even convinced Natalia to try it! Enough said.
We arrived at the eerie, glowing crater six bone-shaking hours later (including driving through dunes after dark). It was pretty impressive! The Darvasa Gas Crater is a manmade phenomenon. Turkmenistan is bloated with natural gas, and exports form the backbone of the economy, so there is a lot of drilling. In 1971 a Russian drilling platform collapsed on this site, creating a deep crater and raging fires. There were many attempts to put out the flames, but nothing worked, and eventually, it was abandoned and left to burn itself out. But it never did. That was over fifty years ago, and now it is the number one Turkmenistan tourist attraction.
The visit to the “Gates of Hell” was worth it. Note the minimal fencing around the edge. Selfie takers, beware!
After we spent some time appreciating these eternal flames, we settled into our Yurt. We wished we had arrived during twilight hours when we could still see - because it is particularly dark in the middle of a desert. There wasn’t any lighting in our hut other than the battery-operated spotlight we were given to affix to the wall, but as always, I travel with my trusty firestarter and a few candles, so we got those going. Then, we got a good look at where (and on what) we would be sleeping. That would be two hard cots with thin mattresses, a quilt, and plenty of wooly sheep skins. This was one of those times we were glad we had our own pillows! And wine! And those glasses I pinched! Other than it being freezing cold, things weren’t too bad. We freshened up in the communal bathrooms with “proper” toilets and headed to the main building for dinner.
Cold but somewhat comfortable in our Yurt accommodations. It was definitely a memorable Senior Nomads Moment.
There were about ten groups, and each group sat with its guides and drivers. The dinner was plentiful and delicious. The grilled lamb chops were tender and tasty, as were the vegetable soup, rice pilaw, the obligatory salad, and some excellent apple pastries.
We did it! The next morning was cool and crisp and the desert sparkled.
The tour company that we were using for our week's visit operates this exclusive crater-side campsite, and the owner was on hand to greet us. And make sure there were as many vodka "toasts" as the various groups needed. There was at least one birthday, so that was a good start. We begged off and walked into the desert a bit to admire the stars. There was also a beautiful mamma cat with a litter of kittens to warm my heart - if nothing else.
Breakfast was early because Day Four included another excursion and an overnight train back to Ashgabat. See you there!
Thanks for following along,
Debbie and Michael Campbell
The Senior Nomads